In the confectionery area many products are provided with a coating in order to obtain the desired product properties or to enable the use of a filling that can not be used without a coating. Many of these coatings are based on chocolate fats either being cocoa butter or a CBE (=cocoa butter equivalent). However cocoa butter or a CBE contains a lot of polymorphic fats of the SUS type (S=C16/C18 saturated fatty acid; U=Unsaturated C18 fatty acid). These fats have one major drawback ie because of its polymorphic nature the fats need to be subjected to a tempering treatment in order to bring the fats into the desired stable crystal form. This treatment is difficult and expensive and needs a lot of skills. But even then the products obtained often suffer from bloom after a certain storage time.
Well known coating fats that are applied for many years are based on trans fats (ie fats with a relatively high trans fatty acid content), such as Kaomel. Trans fats are nowadays considered as less healthy, reason enough to try to avoid its use if possible.
Kaomel is a midfraction of a mixture of lightly hardened liquid oils, such as cotton seed oil and soybean oil. Although Kaomel has a solid fat content (N-line) which makes it very suitable for application in coatings and it also is a non-temper fat, it thus has the drawback of its relatively high trans content.
An alternative for Kaomel was based on a range of fats with high lauric fat contents. Examples of these fats are palmkernel stearin fractions. However these fats are susceptible to a soapy rancidity and moreover these fats have limited comparability with cocoa butter which limits its possible use in compositions wherein cocoa butter is present.
Therefore we conducted a study in order to find new fat compositions that are useful coating fats, that are substantially free of trans fatty acids (ie &lt;10%, preferably &lt;5%, more preferably &lt;2%), that are non-temper fats ie they can be used without having to perform a tempering and still avoiding the occurrence of bloom. Moreover these fats are low in laurics which is a main advantage because this will avoid the occurrence of rancidity due to the presence of high amounts of lauric fatty acids residues. Moreover these fats can be made from non-tropical fat sources as well. This is in particular relevant in those countries were fats made from tropical fats are not appreciated or even not allowed.